Conservatives bring back the tax bombshell

James Reed

Published:12:46Wednesday 03 May 2017

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The Conservatives will bring back one of their most successful election poster campaigns as they claim Jeremy Corbyn would inflict a tax “bombshell” on families today. It will launch a new poster with the slogan “Corbyn: No Bombs for our Army, One big bombshell for your family”.

The poster harks back to the Conservatives’ “Labour’s Tax Bombshell” poster that was a mainstay of its 1992 General Election campaign.

Along with its “Double Whammy” poster, it was credited with helping the Conservatives to a surprise win that year.

Haltemprice and Howden MP David Davies said: “Jeremy Corbyn’s nonsensical and irresponsible ideas pose a grave risk to the future of Britain’s economy and the finances of every family in the country. His many, ill-thought through promises simply don’t stack up and could not be paid for.

“The damage this bombshell would do to the country’s finances if Corbyn’s coalition of chaos were given the keys to Downing Street would be disastrous.”

A Labour Party spokesman said: “This is yet more nonsense from a Tory campaign that’s all slogan and no substance. It’s the latest desperate attempt to distance themselves from their failures and to distract from the fact that they’ve not ruled out hitting those on lower and middle incomes with further tax increases.

“Their false claims about Labour’s plans in this campaign haven’t been worth the paper they’ve been printed on; they’ve fallen apart before the ink has dried on their latest press release. This will no doubt be no different with more claims that can’t be backed up and misrepresentations of the truth.

“Labour’s policies are fully-costed and properly paid for. Our plans will be set out in our manifesto.”